Nutrition

A 40-year-old female presented to her primary care provider with a chief complaint of weight gain over the past year. She wants to be fully evaluated for any kind of medical disorder that could have caused it. She has been seen by multiple specialists but no one can give her a “straight diagnosis”. Their advice is for her to lose weight. She insists she never had problems with her weight…

The human taste bud has become increasingly accustomed to the Japanese invention of the early 20th century: monosodium glutamate, better known as MSG. Its basic component, glutamate, is a non-essential amino acid found in many naturally occurring food sources. This universally consumed food additive has historically garnered much attention for its potential threat to human health. To best understand how an amino acid has amassed such a tarnished reputation, we must first consider the history of its discovery and…

You hear it wherever you eat, whether at the deli ordering a breakfast sandwich or at the diner for Sunday brunch, “Egg whites only, please.” For the last decade, there has been a strong movement toward avoiding egg yolks; instead people are opting for only the ‘healthier’ egg white when ordering or cooking their breakfast.

However, are egg whites truly ‘healthier’ than eating whole eggs? What is the basis for this decision being…

The sunlight forces its way into your eyes, stabbing at your cortex. Suddenly, a wave of nausea and diarrhea grips your stomach, threatening to evacuate its contents. You rush to the bathroom, tripping over the clothes that speckle your apartment. Your heart pounds inside your chest and your hands shake ever so subtly. Your mind is in a fog and the details of last night’s party are…

Everyday in clinic, we tell our patients to choose foods low in saturated fat. Because these foods raise plasma cholesterol, the thinking goes, they cause heart disease. Today, every major medical organization – from the American Heart Association to the Harvard School of Public Health to the USDA – recommends a diet low in saturated fat to prevent and treat heart disease. The fat-cholesterol-heart disease connection is so thoroughly integrated into both medicine and popular culture…

At some point during my medical training, drinking coffee went from being an enjoyable, even indulgent, activity to being my primary weapon against fatigue and its associated decline in cognitive function. Although realizing this made me critically, and somewhat resentfully, evaluate my own consumption of coffee, it also made me think more generally about the role of coffee in today’s world. In the hospital, where many of us spend most of our time, coffee is ubiquitous. However, such…

In the age of prevention, primary care is more empowered than ever to educate patients on reducing their risk for common chronic diseases by promoting behavior modifications early in the natural history. In the clinic, this means a focus on hyperlipidemia, hypertension, and diabetes—risk factors that play synergistic roles in causing a wide array of diseases with tremendous morbidity and mortality. Given the large number of risk factors that co-exist for so many patients, astute clinicians are aiming for…

As a medical student, I adjusted to waking up at 6 AM every day – with the help of coffee, of course. Living in New York City and its fast-paced routine requires that extra kick those beans provide. So, should I add sugar or Splenda to my coffee? Half a century ago this question did not exist, but obesity was not a word in the Merriam-Webster then. Today, we have to think more carefully.

“Red Meat Kills.” “Red Meat a Ticket to Early Grave.” “A Hot Dog a Day Raises Risk of Dying.” Such were the headlines circulating in popular press last year when the Annals of Internal Medicine released details of an upcoming article out of Frank Hu’s research group at the Harvard School of Public Health . Analyzing long-term prospective data from two large cohort studies, researchers found that individuals who ate a serving of unprocessed red meat each day…

Omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been popularized in recent years as beneficial nutrients with cardioprotective effects. Omega-3 PUFAs are so named because of a double bond between the 3rd and 4th carbon of the polycarbon chain. They are “poly-unsaturated” with hydrogen atoms, as their carbon chains contain multiple double bonds. Three omega-3 long chain PUFAs are typically discussed in the context of medical therapy, the first being alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). ALA is an essential precursor omega-3…

Obesity is defined as a body mass index (BMI) of ?30 kg/m2. The rate of obesity in the United States has skyrocketed over the last several decades, becoming a disease of epidemic proportions. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2009, 32 states had a prevalence of obesity of ?25%, while 9 of these states had a prevalence of ?30%. It has been estimated that the economic costs of treating obesity and its complications, including type…

Few people these days are unaware of the “obesity epidemic,” with its inception here in the United States and its steady, insidious spread around the globe. The numbers are truly staggering: in 2008, the World Health Organization estimated that 1.5 billion adults–over 20% of the earth’s population–were overweight, and 500 million of those were classified as obese, with a body mass index greater than 30. In the United States, over a third of the population is overweight, and…

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